Junking in Sai Kung

The company laid out a final junk boat trip for anyone who wanted to go today. We decided that it should start in an area called Sai Kung because the water is cleaner and the beaches tend to be a bit nicer round that area. An extra bonus was that you could go wakeboarding or Banana Boating. Robyn and I chose the banana boating with some considerable hilarity.

Getting ready

On the way...

...and then click (here) to see a video of where is all went wrong.

It was when we fell off, my foot whacked Robyn in the ribs and the force of the water made her costume 'dislodge' and I hurt my neck on impact that we decided perhaps that banana boating is not suited to us in any way.

Afterwards in the late afternoon we headed back to the mainland for dinner. The choices were plentiful if you liked seafood.

And the name of the place amused me greatly

But don't worry, the food did not turn out to be chunky at all! It was really tasty.

I am now pretty sunburnt and am going to bed. This weekend is the last weekend for everyone who is leaving in Hong Kong. It is going to be painful on Monday, I can see it already.

bx

The Final Group Photo

The last time we will all be together under one roof :(

It's all getting quite sad at the moment.

bx

Student group thinking

So my friend was telling me today how she did a lesson with her primary students. The students were given a situation where they were assigned different characters and had to pretend that they were all in a hot air balloon.

but...

The air balloon is going to crash!! They have to decide which two people should be thrown out of the air balloon to lighten the load and save the group.

The character list went something like: scientist with cure to cancer, doctor, engineer, pregnant lady, prime minister, small child etc etc etc.

After much discussion the students came to their decision. The pregnant lady and small child had to die. The reason for this? Well the students decided they were of no real use and could not justify their staying on the balloon.

If that is not a classic cultural difference moment I don't know what is.

bx

Extreme weather

Hong Hong is HOT, I don't mean 'this is nice weather for the beach hot', it is more like 'I never want to leave the air conditioned flat' hot. Just walking into the (non air conditioned) kitchen left me me sweating this morning. Nice.

But then this happened (click here)

And when the storm passed there was thankfully a drop in the humidity, and it was safe to leave the flat. I decided to take advantage of the slight cool down to walk to the Star Ferry and take a trip to the mainland to buy a friend a present. On my way back though I took a picture of this.

It is pretty rare with all the smog and big concrete view blocking buildings in Hong Kong to ever actually see a good sunset from Wan Chai. So it was quite nice to be on the ferry to take these pictures.

We were supposed to be going island hopping today with the tickets that Robyn got. The storm unfortunatley changed those plans and thankfully I stayed (for the most part) on dry land. I say thankfully because we went out last night and did not get in till the late hours of this morning. When I woke up the very thought of a long boat ride would have had me running to the bathroom.

Next week is Robyns last few days in school and my last few days worrying about people in schools. It's very strange because everyone knows it's all coming to an end but at the moment I don't think it has quite sunk in. There are lots of people staying in Hong Kong from this years team, which might have something to do with the odd atmosphere. On Wednesday we are having a farewell prize giving ceremony and on Thursday the company has rented a junk boat for us all to have a final farewell party, which will no doubt last till Friday morning.

bx

The Birthday of the Buddha

Hong Kong seems to have endless random holidays at various points in the year. I never keep track of them and am always very happy on the monday when I'm told that I have a day off during the week that I never saw coming.

Today is a public holiday because we are celebrating the birthday of Buddha. To those people who are questioning the need for a holiday on this day, Robyn politely reminds them that we have bloody ages off to celebrate the birthday of someone else called Jesus. So why not Buddha too?

I was going to visit Lamma Island today but have decided a far better option is to go and watch Pirates Of the Carribean with Rob and then have a massage. What is ace about Hong Kong is that it has some really swish cinemas. Our nearest one has huge comfy chairs and serves olives and other posh nosh, tho I don't ever buy it, I just sneak stuff in from the local shops. In other news Robyn has been given 4 free tickets to take a boat to one of the far far far off islands in Hong Kong. There are 250 + islands to choose from so I don't know which one we are going to, but apparently it is rarely visited and uninhabited so prepare for pictures soon!

bx

Along the same lines

Keeping along the same subject of weird things that happen in Hong Kong. Take a look at this.

It is of a homeless man who has decided to don a witch hat and direct traffic. He has featured in a magazine this week which is how I found out about it. In Cantonese we would say he was Ti Sing (crazy).

bx

Taxi Drivers and Drug Addicts

Today I found myself at a meeting in Kowloon at one of the Universities. It ended at around 9pm so I decided to treat myself to a taxi back to our flat in Wan Chai, (a cost of 3.50p).

I eventually managed to get a cab to pull over and jumped in the back. Put my seatbelt on and explained in Cantonese where I wanted him to take me. At this point the driver coughs and replies in perfect English "You can speak to me in English it's fine". My instant reaction to this was to stupidly check that the driver himself was not Prince Charles. When I say he spoke with perfect English, I mean that he instantly made me feel like a cockney, and I am not a cockney.

So the rest of the journey was spent talking about how colonial schooling helped him develop his English ability. He also talked at great deal about how interested he found the old Latin relationships that exist amongst many modern English words. He then gave me a few examples. We eventually pulled up and he chatted for about another 5 minutes before he seemed satisfied and accepted my money, it was very surreal but really quite nice. It made his day when I commented how amazing I considered his English to be.

To add to my surreal journey I then exited the taxi, crossed the road to go home and had to walk past the area behind the underground train exit. This area is a large and busy public space, but it is also where a treatment center is located for those suffering from a drug addiction to methamphetamine. I don't quite know how the center operates but I think the treatment involves providing the addicts with something else on a regular basis to quench their addiction. This is because they sleep, live and all socialise in this area all hours of the day. Something must be keeping them there.

I was walking through this area when I spotted one of the addicts decorating a tree... I then looked above eye level and was met with quite a sight. There was either Christmas decorations, or the heads off mannequin shop dolls hanging from every concievable place in the immediate vicinity. I don't quite know what made the addicts decide to do this but it was really funny/weird. There were mannequin heads hanging off trees, shop signs and even road signs, often with Christmas decorations as well. So our lovely local addicts seem to have an arty creative side, which is nice.

I just told all this to Robyn after she came back from the cinema. She replied "considering at lunch time we were dancing the Salsa in front of 120 students, i'm surprised your day could have got weirder". But there you go, Honky Kong sometimes just likes to surprise you.

bx

Rain Rain Rain

It has rained now for nearly 48 hours non stop. It is either raining or it is pouring, nothing else. It looks like Wednesday and Thursday may be slightly better but i'm told by others that it looks like that is wrong and it's going to rain all week.

I think I should have been born a fish.

bx

@ The Cavern

So it was a friends birthday and a group of guys and gals headed out to the bar district to celebrate in style. We went to a bar/club type place with live music called "The Cavern".

I turn my back for two seconds, turn round again and this is what i am met with.

Now I knew that Robyn and Nikki (the other girl dancing) knew this band quite well. But I had no idea that they were were such avid fans that no one would bat an eyelid when they jumped up onto the stage and started dancing. It was very funny.

bx

Flat

I wish I could say this was a joke. But one building I am considering moving into is called Fu King Court.

Click here to be taken to property info about it (and a really good Hong Kong property hunting website)

bx

Students and Tourists

Today I was part of a 6 person team taking lots of small primary students to Stanley Market for the day. In a nutshell the day involved me being assigned a group of little people and making sure they behaved themselves (and talked English) whilst going about various tasks in the Stanley Market area.

Part of the students task was to go around the markets and ask tourists some questions, (much like an English speaking lynch mob). This I always watched from a distance because the whole thing is done to help boost their confidence in speaking English to strangers.

I was watching from a distance on just such an occasion whilst three of my girls were talking to a couple of very blonde female tourists. I could see there was some sort of a problem and the girls came back looking very down trodden and confused.

I asked them what happened and the most outspoken of the three looked at me in amazement. "They do not speak English!!" She exclaimed. "I speak better English than they do!!! How can that be?!" There was all round shock that a white person may not be able to speak English.

It turns out they were German.

And here is a picture of the whole bunch of them. (I am not hard to spot at all)

bx

Only in Honkers...

Today, 10:30am, from across the playground:

"Miss Gweebs!!!!"
"Hi Mary"
"I'm not Mary any more, I'm Jackie"
"Oh, OK. Hi Jackie"

It's the little things I will miss about Hong Kong.

R x

Passport prices

I just went and renewed my passport. It cost me just under 140 quid!!!

That is an extreme price for such a small red book.

bx

When good intentions go bad

This morning I woke up early, got my swimming shorts and prepared to take part in an hour swim workout before heading to the office.

I got the pool and found it was closed for building work.

I went home, purchased a Macdonalds, sat in front of the TV and became a vegetable for an hour instead.

How is it possible that my good intentions can go quite that wrong all before 8AM in the morning?

bx

Disney!

Hong Kong has 2 main theme parks. Ocean Park and Disney.

If you ask any student which park is worth visiting they will tell you Ocean Park, and that Disney in Hong Kong is boring and expensive. For that reason, up and till yesterday I never bothered visiting Disney, but the opportunity arose and I figured I might as well check the place out at least once.

First off, it was not very busy at all! I went on Space Mountain a total of 6 times and did not have to wait (Although by 6th time I was feeling a bit dizzy). We went to see some of the shows which were amazing as well, especially the Lion King. At the end of the day Disney put on a big fireworks show and then it was time to go home! For Hong Kong it was expensive to get into (23 quid) but once inside food and stuff was really cheap. They even had an MTR underground train service that took you directly to the park.

And even the train had some Disney detail!

Overall I think Disney has been given a bit of a bad rep. It has not got loads of fast paced rides like Ocean Park, but what it does do, it does well. More importantly you did not feel like you were in Hong Kong, you really did feel that you had left the country, which was nice. Later in the evening Me and Robyn were out in Lan Kwai Fong (the bar district) having drunk enough to produce a picture like this.

We should not be allowed out in public

bx

The final countdown

It is exactly 1 month before I leave the little Island of Hong Kong and venture to America for a couple of weeks and then England for a week after that. Before that time I need to get a new passport, sort out a new flat and organize various other documents to make sure I can legally stay in Hong Kong. For me finding a flat is the most pressing issue, I have decided to go for a small (like I have a choice) studio flat somewhere on Hong Kong Island near the office. I have grown really attached to Wan Chai so am also looking for a place around that area as an option too.

It is less than a month now before the joint adventures of Robyn and Ben will also come to an end. She is leaving me here and heading back home to probably become the future editor of 'Heat Magazine' or something equally brilliant. I meanwhile have a contract which sees me sticking around here till September 2008! That is quite scary...

This means that it will also be the end of this little blog. It will remain online as a diary of what we got up to in Honkers, but at the end of the month will stop being updated. I'm pretty sure that there will be another blog on the way, especially as we currently have an average of 30 different people logging on every day to see what boring things we get up to!

Plus even though Rob is off to pastures new, she will be back here in Hong Kong sleeping on my floor at regular occasions! (I even will have a spare little fold up bed by then!) It's strange though because at the moment it does not feel like anything is going to change at all. I think I will come back from holiday and just be bewildered at where all my friends have gone! :(

bx

Student names

So, a list has been going around the company asking for the top two funniest student names that each person has in their class. Here is the list.

1. Tiger
2. Frog
3. Roymond
4. Aunty Mary
5. Ice Man
6. Zero
7. Alarm
8. ET
9. Zeus
10. Welly
11. Ce Ce (means poo in Cantonese apparently)
12. Noddy
13. Monkey
14. Answer
15. The Nun
16. Jealous
17. Legend
18. Snoopy
19. Eric Can To Na
20. Wun Jim hoo (on the gymnastics team)
21. Shevchenko
22. Baby
23. Colon
24. Circle2
25. T-Rex
26. Mr Man
27. Conan
28. Lincolm
29. Elvis
30. Queenie
31. Chicken Wing
32. Gash
33. Johnson's Baby
34. Darkie
35. Noris
36. Horris
37. Ameeba
38. Cell
39. Fanny
40. Fish
41. Brother Wong
42. Winky

Please note that 19 and 20 are jokes and not true student names. Everything else is. That is what you get when you let students pick their own names i suppose.

Now pick your fave 2 names and write them in the comments box... I think at least one of them will be Robs student.

bx

Beijing pictures

Pictures from Beijing la!

Inside a guard tower on the Great Wall. (which really is great by the way!)

My great head sticking out of the great wall.

This is me and Nicolas inside the Forbidden City in central Beijing.

Without him being the guide I would have been lost without a doubt, it's a confusing city, especially if you can't speak the language!

Me at Tiananmen Square with the entrance to the Forbidden City behind me

A closer look at the entrance with Mao overlooking things

Speaking of which, here is some very patriotic Chinese graffiti

Me outside the gates to the Temple of Heaven with a couple of big knockers.

for a fraction over 1 quid you can eat an entire turtle at some food establishments. I'm sure the taste is 'unique'.

Whilst on the subject of food, anyone for duck? The two bits of meat on the head are taken from inside and are meant to be the best bits... yum.

Overall my impression of Beijing is hugely different to what i expected. It had far more modern western elements than I imagined. I walked past a Wall Mart, a Gucci store and loads of other similar western establishments that I never thought to see. Having said that, it is the first time in a while I have been in a country with no substantial colonial influence to its history. I can't begin to explain how much stuff I learnt and how interesting the city is. What i do know though is that if I visit there for the 2008 Olympics (which is my plan) the city will have changed vastly. I'm not joking when I say the entire place is being torn down and rebuilt ready for the games. It is changing things from taxi drivers having to learn English to the skyline of the city itself.

I need to write a big thanks to Nicolas who was my host and guide in Beijing. I know he reads this little blog so I have to say thanks to him for everything. Nicolas and his family friends were very welcoming and he was a brilliant guide in what could be a very confusing city. I know that without his local knowledge my time in Beijing would not have been half as worthwhile so. THANK YOU NICOLAS!!!

bx

Things you should know about Beijing

Things you should know about Beijing

1. If you wish to cross the road DO NOT assume that the green flashing man means it is safe to do so. Cars ignore this green man and make you wish you took out extra life insurance. This is especially true when crossing TEN LANES of traffic!
2. In Beijing taxi doors only open on the right.
3. If a structure is more than a few years old it will be pulled down in preparation for the Beijing Olympics
4. If a structure is new and shiny it will have been built for the Olympics
5. Do not use pictures to order food, unless you are happy eating the stomach of a duck
6. If you want to visit the great wall then be prepared to take a bus to the nearest town then barter with a complete stranger who owns a car to drive you there. Believe it or not there is no public transport route to the good parts of the great wall.
7. Don't worry about visiting any theme parks in Beijing. Just take a taxi and get the thrills and danger for a fraction of the cost.
8. Learn some of the language before you arrive. If I did not have someone who could speak Mandarin with me I would not have been able to even find a toilet without having to mime actions.
9. Be prepared to be stared at sometimes.
10. It is an amazing place.

I'm still in Beijing at the moment. I will fill you in on what I have got up to when I arrive in Hong Kong. Having a great time and it seems Robyn has some stories to tell me when I get back!

It's my birthday tomorrow!!!

bx

Gettin' wiggy with it...

So, after a long week educationg the youth of Hong Kong me and some of the girls decided to invest in some stunning wigs and paint the town red - Hong Kong style (i.e. sing apalling karaoke). You might recognise my wig from the previous post, yes I stole it from Cinderella. I think the pictures paint a fairly accurate picture of how the rest of the night panned out...

Good times.

R x

"Robyn, that was...unintentionally hilarious"

So, after what seemed like years of meetings, rehearsals, blood, sweat and shouting; Wednesday was the day of the Form Four mini-drama. If I havn't spoken about this before it's mainly because until about 2 weeks ago I was convinced we wouldn't have a drama and until about 2 days ago I was hoping for some kind of act of God that would mean we couldn't do it. Basically someone upon high decided it would be a fabulous idea to get some of the Form Four girls to perform a mini-drama for the rest of their year. Said person has obviously never attempted to get 15 year old girls who have never done drama before, have a million and one other things to do and are hormonal to come up with a play in a few weeks. In a foreign language. With the expectation that the play should be 'Hong Kong Perfect' (I think I'm going to copywright that term...)
Anyway, me and the NETs decided to throw sensible things like auditions and scripts out the window and let the girls choose the story and said anyone who wants to be in it can be. This lead to a rather motley crew of mainly low ability, rather enthusiastic but slightly mental girls telling the well-known love story of Pinnochio and Cinderella...what do you mean you've never heard the love story of Pinnochio and Cinderella? Fine, I'll fill you in...

Cinderella's mother is very sick while she and Cinderella are playing in a forrest. Cinderella's mother vomits on a tree and promptly dies. Cinderella's father does not want Cinderella to be lonely so he cuts down the tree that Cinderella's mother vomited on and makes the wood into Pinnochio (see above).

Cinderella's evil step-mother throws Pinnochio away. Cinderella and her step-sisteres are invited to a party being held by two princes. Cinderella has nothing to wear but luckily her fairy Godmother appears and magics her a beautiful dress.

At the party the princes argue over who gets to dance with Cinderella but they are so horrible that Cinderella runs away, loosing a shoe in the process...

While Cinderella is looking for her shoe she bumps into Pinnochio. Pinnochio has come alive because Cinderella's mother's vomit made the wood in the tree he was made from magic. Cinderella doesn't recognise Pinnochio and Pinnochio doesn't tell Cinderella who he is because he embarassed about how ugly he is. When the clock strikes midnight Cinderella kisses Pinnochio and runs home but Cinderella's kiss makes Pinnochio change into a handsome man!

Now he is handsome Pinnochio finds Cinderella and tell her who he really is. Cinderella agrees to marry Pinnochio. They live happily ever after!

Meanwhile, the princes find Cinderella's shoe and it fits both the ugly step-sisters, so each of the princes marries one of the step-sisters and they live horribly ever after!

See what happens when you tell students the drama can be about whatever they like?! This was entirely their storyline - my only job was to translate it into a script that could be understood by people other than 15 year old girls.

Anyway, as you've probably gathered the whole experiencewas entirely insane - sometimes in a good way, sometimes less so...Lack of rehearsal and general last-minute-ness meant we were expecting it to be a bit of a shambles, but we never expected that 30 seconds into the first scene the curtain would break.

I should explaoin that the curtain was somewhat intregal to the play - we probably opened and shut it about 10 times during the play to change set, costumes, find girls who have wandered off etc etc and much of the acting therefore took place in front of the curtain. So, basically we had unknowingly created a drama that revolved around the ability to open and close a very decrepid curtain. More fool us.

However, two quick-thinking students became the curtain mechanism grabbing one side each and for the rest of the play, on my shout, either sprinted to the middle of the stage dragging the curtain behind them or yanked the curtain back far enough for the audience to see, not only what was going on onstage, but also into the wings where I'm throwing a girl into a dress or stapling a microphone to someone's chest.

The climax of the whole debacle came when we had to change Cinderella into her ballgown in about 6 seconds behind the curtain(while the Fairy Godmother is waving her wand in front of the curtain) As Cinderella appears through the gap in the curtain fully dressed, we get her ready basically centre stage behing the closed curtain. However, as the curtain is now being controlled by mental teenages who don't know what the hell is going on, one minute I'm bending down shoving Cinderella's feet into sparkly shoes while Daphne is dumping the dress over her head, safely concealed by the curtain, the next minute the curtain has been yanked back exposing me, Daphne and a half-dressed Cinderella to the whole audience... After some rather venomous whispering on my part, something along the lines of "Would you mind awfully closing the curtain while we put some clothes on this girl?" the curtain was closed and it was on with the show!

To their credit, despite the unexpected turn of events all the girls soldiered on and didn't totally loose the plot. The title of this post is the first comment I got after we finished. The powers that be are yet to give me their opinion... However, the girls in the audience found the play both intentionally and untintentionally hysterical, as did the girls who were in it, so that's all that matters.

Curtain. Buggered.

Anyway, these fun and games took place the day before the mental fun fair that Ben wrote about in the last post. But it's now 3:14pm on a Friday. The last day of English Week (the rest of which has been eclipsed by the mini-drama but was also fairly insane by normal person standards). I'm going to go and hibernate somewhere until the end of May.

R x

Definition of madness

Definition of madness=160 students in a not too big hall, playing English speaking games. For quite some considerable time.



Look at the picture above and see if you can spot Robyn in the sea of students. Thankfully this was at her school and I had to leave halfway through to go to a college. By about an hour into it my head felt about to explode. It was so noisy la!

Our fun was disrupted though when a dinosaur burst into the hall and tried to attack Robyn.

Ok, that maybe just a toy and me playing around with the settings on my camera. But if nothing else it proves that madness was starting to set in by this stage!

Right, I am going to Beijing eventually, it is nearly midnight and I am waiting for my camera battery to finish charging before i can go to bed. Thinking about it that is quite sad, but i'm told that you should not leave them charging overnight.
bx

Up in the clouds

I see this big ole building most days in Hong Kong at some point towering above the skyline. But when I took this picture it was the first time in a good few days that the top of the building was not obscured by clouds/smog/fog/mist. It is called the International Finance Center (IFC for short) and is where the rich people go shopping :)

Anyway, today is my last full day before i fly off to Beijing untill the 8th of May when I get back. From what my friend has told me I don't think I will be able to log into the blog whilst I am there due to media restricitions and the like. You kind of forget you are visiting a place where media is monitored and controlled.

I am also going to drop in a picture I took in the New Territories of Honkers when I was doing some work in a college. I was wandering around the place when I got to a rooftop section that overlooked a main industrial port of Hong Kong.

There were multicoloured containers and cranes for unloading the ships as far as the eye could see. It was quite a different sight to the normal polished skyscrapers and other big buildings you see closer to home.

bx

Junking it up

Today was labour day in Hong Kong, this means that everyone has a day off. So most of the gang got together and hired a junk boat for the day to take us bobbing around the ocean and adventuring around the islands. It was really cheap (7 quid each) to hire the boat for the day and amaaaazing fun.

What i did establish though was that I do actually get seasick. On all previous junk boat trips enjoyed I have also been horribly hung over from the night before. This time was the exception, yet I was still a little bit green round the gills by the time we got to the beach. It's one more problem in life I can't blame on drink :)

The deserted beach where we stopped

Bobbing around in the water

Me being an idiot

Our fun was hampered somewhat when a sodding big jellyfish floated past and everyone got a bit nervous about getting in the water. But most of us used the time to laze about on the top deck of the boat sunbathing. I am now so red it is unreal, just about to get into the shower so if you hear any screaming it will be the water hitting my burnt back ...

bx

3 days till i'm in Beijing!!!